Google Unveils Pixel Phone, Smart Home Hub, and More at AI-Focused Event

[Otaviano]

So typical of Google, they've always been lame. Android is a blatant & crappy rip-off of iOS thanks to whats his face who dipped off Apple's board before the iPhone came out, and now they've come full circle ripping off the hardware design too. (and poorly done might I add) Hell, Samsung's attempts at ripping off Apple are almost better..

They ripped off a bunch of people yesterday not just Apple. Amazon Echo, Samsung Galaxy Gear VR, Eero WiFi Routers.

 

[fruitofcreation]

So typical of Google, they've always been lame. Android is a blatant & crappy rip-off of iOS thanks to whats his face who dipped off Apple's board before the iPhone came out, and now they've come full circle ripping off the hardware design too. (and poorly done might I add) Hell, Samsung's attempts at ripping off Apple are almost better..

Yeah....I'm not sure which part of ios that they copied is my favorite. It's probably the cute stickers for messages or the inferior Google Now

 

[VolpediMare]

A does not explode
And B it has official support from google.

Just like any Nexus phone before. We'll see how they'll manage customer service as they did really bad in the past and this is crucial to have a chance (beyond geeks and nerds). Amazon and Apple shine at this, Google seems to start from scratch and has a bias towards automation, FAQ lists, forums but no face to face or structured support.

 

[TrueBlou]

Fast charging creates more heat and adds more stress on the battery, thereby shortening its lifespan, regardless of what percentage you charge it to.

Should we also be concerned for our iPhones then as they feature fast charging also, for the most part you just need a better power supply to see it. Though they do charge faster to around 80% then slow the charging rate for the remaining 20% even with the standard 1A charger, hence the lawsuit against them.

I use my iPad Pro USB-C charger with my iPhone and get from 0% to 50% in just under half an hour. That should be the same when using any 2A or above iPad charger as the iPhone is designed to take advantage of the higher current available to it. If that's not fast charging, what is it? It's also why there's sophisticated circuitry to constantly monitor the condition of the battery, it's temperature and so on and adjust accordingly.

 

[fruitofcreation]

No ois still better than the iphone ois
Hardly anyone uses wireless charging.
No dual lens camera yet still better than the iphone 7+. Look at doxmark.
No iris scanner needed.
3DT is the dumbest hardware ever. Can implemented better with just touch gestures.

Wow. First time i visit this site and look at the comments. The level of stupidity and sheepness is real. I thought it was just a myth. Full of pathetic keyboard warrior. Lol
Yay humanaity?

It's not everyone. There's a lot of people here that are genuinely interested in tech in general. But yes, you can tell that some people only care for the glossy apple logo in the back.

 

[rogerbarton]

Come on now. Are people seriously saying Google Assistant / Now is inferior to Siri? News for you - it really isn't. Wouldn't mind having a play with Pixel, but they've basically made a Google iPhone and I've always been sold on the UI of iOS compared to Android.

AI would be the only reason I'd consider switching and that's what Google have gambled on, but with the Google app, Gboard, Google Photos and Allo all running quite nicely on my iPhone, I don't really have so much of an incentive. This is where Apple tacks differently - they're giving me incentives to stay in their ecosystem with iMessage etc.

 

[fruitofcreation]

Even though no one will benefit from your uninspired comment. The Pixel at least Offers another option besides Samsung and Apple. Maybe the Pixel will suit others needs in what they want in an Phone. And let's not forget, this is a first generation phone. Apple and Samsung were there once too.

It's not necessarily a first gen phone. It's just a rebranding of the Nexus line.

 

[Rob_2811]

Some of the embarrassing comments in this thread

Do people actually think that Siri is on the same planet as the stuff Google is doing with AI? Its not even close. People calling the phones ugly, they look similar to the iPhone 7 minus the iPhones protruding camera.

The proof of the pudding, as always, is in the eating. If googles phones work as advertised it will be one up on a headphone jack less phone , courageously pushing us towards a wireless future complete with bluetooth and LTE connectivity issue.

 

[KmanOz]

If Fandroids cannot see that this phone is a direct hit at Apple then they have bigger issues than just loving Android phones. It looks like an iPhone 6, the OS has been simplified like iOS and the phones Website looks and feels like an Apple Website. It's almost laughable, but of course Apple doesn't innovate, Google does....

These are desperate measures because it's dying as an ecosystem. Forget that the majority of $2 Chinese rip offs are using Android. That's the only reason it's the most popular OS in the world. People that own those phones don't spend big $$$ on apps. In fact Android users don't spend in general and that's a big problem for their app store and the fact that developers are shying away. There are many instances where devs just don't bother with the Android equivalent of the iOS app or it's just an inferior version of the iOS app.

Your average phone sales guy will be able to say, look, it's really no different to Apple. To the uninformed, it won't be. That's how you get sales. And when they're discounted and they kinda look and work the same, Booooom.

Imitation is the greatest form of flattery. I'v always said, there's innovators and imitators. We now know what Google is.

 

[fruitofcreation]

Apple is the Mercedes of consumer electronics

Oh boy

 

[Ploki]

LOL @ 'relic'

My god.. the arrogance.

A relic? Seriously, go out more.

It's literally a century old technology. If you need it, use it via extender. Everytime a technology is dropped a bunch of stuck-up internet warriors springs up and throws a fit.
Nobody cares. It's gone. Deal with it.

 

[JaySoul]

To be fair, Google Voice is already a thousand times more useful than Siri, and Assistant should be even better, considering how much attention they're drawing to it. The gap between the current services is even greater than Google Maps vs Apple Maps, which is really saying something.

Also, the camera has already been rated the best on the market. Sure, it won't have the dual-lens still-fake-but-better bokeh effect or the zoom function, but I'm not sure if there's a clear winner there, though the dual-camera marketing will probably push more buys Apple's way if people are comparing.

A real, serious plus for the Google phone will be the integrated (and free) cloud storage. If it's totally seamless, that'll be a huge plus for the Google phone, and basically mean a phone that never needs to be synced, even if you do a lot of photo/video shooting with it.

PS. A Headphone Jack! No Proprietary Lightning! No lightning means less dongles in my life, and to be honest, my next phone purchase will 100% have a headphone/aux jack. I'm never going to use a dongle to make use of my headphones with my phone.

I get that but most of what you've talked about is software-based.

The Assistant will be great, but I'm sure that will roll out properly to every phone around the world.

The Camera has been rated by DxO - who up until yesterday rated the HTC 10 as the best around, which is frankly ridiculous. I've followed them a long time and they've gotten worse with reviews. Also the camera doesn't have mechanical OIS, so let's just wait for proper reviews to test it out. I doubt it will be better than Samsung or Apple.

Cloud storage - I already use Google Photos, and it has unlimited storage for most options (except 4K).

Headphone Jack, yep, that's good. But as it stands, you can get a Samsung S7 for much cheaper than the Pixel, and hardware-wise, it's still far better in most respects.

Google just didn't push hard enough on the hardware front this year. It's interesting and all, but they won't shift a lot of units.
[doublepost=1475660510][/doublepost]

Google Pixel

No OIS - Yes, it has OIS - it's right in the announcement - go watch it.
No waterproofing - Don't take your phone in the pool
No stereo speakers - Use stereo headphones with the 3.5mm HEADPHONE JACK
No wireless charging - Neither does the iPhone
No dual lens cameras - But works with VR
No Iris scanner - Neither does the iPhone
No 3DT - But has an AMOLED screen at full 1920x1080 HD res on the 5" and 2560 x 1440 for the 5.5", iPhone 7 is still a paltry 1334×750 in 2016

It doesn't have mechanical OIS, it uses software gimmickry.
Waterproofing isn't just for swimming pools. The Pixel could barely survive a rainstorm with that rating.
Yes it has a headphone jack, but so does almost every other phone around. Huge bezels but no front-facing speakers? From HTC??
Wireless charging is useful for a lot of people with Samsungs especially.
Dual lens would be nice to push tech forward, e.g. how Huawei P9 does it. Again, not essential though.
As for VR - the Pixel doesn't even have Quad HD... Let's see how that looks in VR.
[doublepost=1475660580][/doublepost]

No ois still better than the iphone ois
Hardly anyone uses wireless charging.
No dual lens camera yet still better than the iphone 7+. Look at doxmark.
No iris scanner needed.
3DT is the dumbest hardware ever. Can implemented better with just touch gestures.

Wow. First time i visit this site and look at the comments. The level of stupidity and sheepness is real. I thought it was just a myth. Full of pathetic keyboard warrior. Lol
Yay humanaity?

If you can't see that the Samsung S7 is comparatively hugely ahead of the Pixel in terms of hardware... This conversation is over.
[doublepost=1475660652][/doublepost]

I don't necessarily care about the price because I have money for gadgets, but how are any of those features must haves or relevant to how good the device is?

If money is no object, I'd still say the Note 7, the iPhone 7 and the S7 Edge are way ahead in terms of hardware.

Google announced some nice software stuff but I'm sure that will roll out to most devices on earth.
[doublepost=1475660810][/doublepost]

Really?!

Yet, the Pixel has the best camera of any current phone on the market, according to DXOMARK:
https://www.dxomark.com/Mobiles/Pixel-smartphone-camera-review-At-the-top

"With an overall DxOMark Mobile score of 89, pixel, the latest Google smartphone, is the highest-rated smartphone camera we have ever tested."

The dual camera iPhone 7 did not even make it in the top 5....

DxO is getting worse and worse. They rated the HTC 10 as the best smartphone camera ever which is an absolute JOKE, they've not reviewed (i.e. been paid to review) any LG devices recently, and the only way to see how good it genuinely is - wait for proper tech sites to review it in real world use.

Over on the Android sub-thread, we know to basically ignore DxO now.
[doublepost=1475660856][/doublepost]

you forgot it has a headphone jack. Not being forced to buy new accessories. Dont forget your dongle bro

 

[deany]

Just like any Nexus phone before. We'll see how they'll manage customer service as they did really bad in the past and this is crucial to have a chance (beyond geeks and nerds). Amazon and Apple shine at this, Google seems to start from scratch and has a bias towards automation, FAQ lists, forums but no face to face or structured support.

I bought a Nexus 7 tablet years ago from google UK sent it back within days and half a dozen phone calls (run around) and 2 months later eventually got a refund.
No appologies.

 

[symphara]

Huh? It doesn't run Android? Sarcasm here? And we all know how RAM hogging Android is. 4GB is like the 2GB of iPhone.

When I got my iPad retina mini in 2013, I was using a Nexus 4 as my daily driver. It became immediately apparent that the 2Gb the Nexus had was a huge advantage over the 1Gb of the iPad. It just reloaded stuff much more rarely. The iPad has always been particularly bad at keeping web pages loaded. So no, I don't believe that 4Gb on Android is like 2Gb on iOS.
[doublepost=1475663043][/doublepost]

These are desperate measures because it's dying as an ecosystem.

Increasingly year-on-year higher OS market share and more apps than on iOS, I think the word is "thriving".

 

[8692574]

more apps than on iOS, I think the word is "thriving".

You can have 1000000 fart / flashlight / cr*pola app , numbers are not everything

 

[44267547]

It's not necessarily a first gen phone. It's just a rebranding of the Nexus line.

But it's still a Phone Google is branding as one of their own per se.

 

[symphara]

You can have 1000000 fart / flashlight / cr*pola app , numbers are not everything

You could, but that's not the case. I haven't found yet an app I need that's on iOS and not on Android. The Google apps, banking, media, shopping, transport, etc. are all on both platforms. Having both an iOS and Android device, all the common apps look the same.

Yes I'm sure there's the odd app that's only on one of the stores, but those are very few. I personally don't know of any, and I haven't had an app problem on Android.

 

[8692574]

You could, but that's not the case. I haven't found yet an app I need that's on iOS and not on Android. The Google apps, banking, media, shopping, transport, etc. are all on both platforms. Having both an iOS and Android device, all the common apps look the same.

Yes I'm sure there's the odd app that's only on one of the stores, but those are very few. I personally don't know of any, and I haven't had an app problem on Android.

Again people reply to me without the context, I did not say that there are app on iPhone that are not on Android (or vice versa for that matter) but I was responding to a guy who said that Android has more apps than iPhones, and while that might be true (and YES it is true) numbers mean very little!!

 

[thettareddast]

Come on now. Are people seriously saying Google Assistant / Now is inferior to Siri? News for you - it really isn't.

I've run the flagship Nexus phone every release since inception.
I've run an iPhone 6 since release, side by side with Nexus - today the 6P.

No longer a shareholder of either company. Don't care who "did it first" or is more innovative. I just want my **** to work.

Not that I rely on AI for anything more than set calendars and alarms.... but I've dabbled with it for fun and:

*Siri had ALWAYS been far superior to Google Now
*G.N. was mostly text-to-speech, with barely any AI to it. most of the queries to it, beyond the utmost simplistic, got translated directly into a search query (rather than parsed as actual question to provide actual answer)
*it had terrible dictation unless a year or so ago

Maybe the new one is better. Maybe it isnt. But it had been far behind for far long

 

[8692574]

I've run the flagship Nexus phone every release since inception.
I've run an iPhone 6 since release, side by side with Nexus - today the 6P.

No longer a shareholder of either company. Don't care who "did it first" or is more innovative. I just want my **** to work.

Not that I rely on AI for anything more than set calendars and alarms.... but I've dabbled with it for fun and:

*Siri had ALWAYS been far superior to Google Now
*G.N. was mostly text-to-speech, with barely any AI to it. most of the queries to it, beyond the utmost simplistic, got translated directly into a search query (rather than parsed as actual question to provide actual answer)
*it had terrible dictation unless a year or so ago

Maybe the new one is better. Maybe it isnt. But it had been far behind for far long

Apple shareholder and lover. here .. but Google nailed Now way better than Apple with Siri.
It is really one of the few things I cannot badmouth about big G! Well that and the Nexus 4 / 5 were pretty awesome phones.

To be honest
Siri is mostly text-to-speech, with barely any AI to it. most of the queries to it, beyond the utmost simplistic, get translated directly into a search query (rather than parsed as actual question to provide actual answer).

 

[symphara]

Again people reply to me without the context, I did not say that there are app on iPhone that are not on Android (or vice versa for that matter) but I was responding to a guy who said that Android has more apps than iPhones, and while that might be true (and YES it is true) numbers mean very little!!

The "guy" was me. While I agree that app numbers don't show a complete picture, the sub-topic in question was started by the ludicrous assertion that the Android ecosystem is dying. I merely pointed out that more year-on-year market share and most apps of any mobile platform show the very opposite. Then it's an ecosystem with Google at the helm, and they're not asleep at all, by the looks of it, but getting into hardware, home, media, VR, beating everyone on consumer AI etc. It's not dying, it's thriving.

 

[thettareddast]

You could, but that's not the case. I haven't found yet an app I need that's on iOS and not on Android. The Google apps, banking, media, shopping, transport, etc. are all on both platforms. Having both an iOS and Android device, all the common apps look the same.

Yes I'm sure there's the odd app that's only on one of the stores, but those are very few. I personally don't know of any, and I haven't had an app problem on Android.

There's a handful.

Yes, for most the part - which means for 95% of people, the software availability are equivalent.

I've found more a few things that are better on iOS than on Android. Such as Wallet, which is superior to the Android 3rd party equivalents. iTunesU is better way to consume small published clips ("podcast", whatever they want to call it) than on Android. There's a couple of National Geographic apps that are iOS exclusive. EVO magazine - a high quality automotive publication - is iOS exclusive. Zwift is the most popular exercise app of its kind and WAS iOS exclusive. Strava is much better on iOS. etc etc etc

Not to mention a bunch of corporate Apps were iOS exclusive.

By no means a deals killer, but atleast for me and what I do, and my job, ive found iOS better.

 

[polbit]

To me Google Assistant could be the game changer. Everything else seems on par or like every other flagship phone, but if Google can really make a true context-sensitive, smart and learning assistant that just works, I'd buy it in a second. Siri is already far behind Google Now, and I've gotten used to having Amazon Echo at home. Looking forward to a future where I don't really have to touch my phone much for typical use.
[doublepost=1475665867][/doublepost]

If Fandroids cannot see that this phone is a direct hit at Apple then they have bigger issues than just loving Android phones. It looks like an iPhone 6, the OS has been simplified like iOS and the phones Website looks and feels like an Apple Website. It's almost laughable, but of course Apple doesn't innovate, Google does....

These are desperate measures because it's dying as an ecosystem. Forget that the majority of $2 Chinese rip offs are using Android. That's the only reason it's the most popular OS in the world. People that own those phones don't spend big $$$ on apps. In fact Android users don't spend in general and that's a big problem for their app store and the fact that developers are shying away. There are many instances where devs just don't bother with the Android equivalent of the iOS app or it's just an inferior version of the iOS app.

Your average phone sales guy will be able to say, look, it's really no different to Apple. To the uninformed, it won't be. That's how you get sales. And when they're discounted and they kinda look and work the same, Booooom.

Imitation is the greatest form of flattery. I'v always said, there's innovators and imitators. We now know what Google is.

Quote of the day for sure! Ignorance is bliss...

 

[symphara]

There's a handful.

Yes, for most the part - which means for 95% of people, the software availability are equivalent.

I've found more a few things that are better on iOS than on Android. Such as Wallet, which is superior to the Android 3rd party equivalents. iTunesU is better way to consume small published clips ("podcast", whatever they want to call it) than on Android. There's a couple of National Geographic apps that are iOS exclusive. EVO magazine - a high quality automotive publication - is iOS exclusive. Zwift is the most popular exercise app of its kind and WAS iOS exclusive. Strava is much better on iOS. etc etc etc

Not to mention a bunch of corporate Apps were iOS exclusive.

By no means a deals killer, but atleast for me and what I do, and my job, ive found iOS better.

Granted, there's always the odd app that's only on one platform (although EVO magazine is on the Play Store as well). I agree that for most people the app availability is equivalent.

I have no problem if people say "I prefer iOS because of what I do, and my job". Or "because the iPhone is a better gaming platform". Or because "I really love 3D Touch". Or because "Over the years I spent a lot of money on iOS apps and I don't want to repurchase them". Or because "all my friends and family use iMessage and FaceTime and those are only on iOS". Or because "I think the iPhone is stylish and looks great".

No problem at all. And I think all those things are true, and preferences are very valid.

I don't get it why people need to justify their preference with stuff like "Android development is full of maggots", "Android ecosystem is dying", "Android is for $2 Chinese rip-off phones", "The Android app store is full of fart apps" etc. These are puerile, often illogical, often at blatant odds with reality statements. All made in this very thread.

I like Android because I like the exposed file system, I like the better Google apps integration, I like the better sharing options of files and data from app to app, I like the better flow of the interface (and the Back button is a big part of that), I prefer open software and open standards to vendor lock-in, and I don't particularly like the iPhones themselves. Too much phone for too little screen. My P9 is about as big as an iPhone 7, but has a 5.2" screen instead of a 4.7", and that's very important to me. Final thing, having an iOS device and having used an iPhone, everything I do on the iPhone, I do it faster on my Android phone. For me, it doesn't make sense to buy an iPhone because I don't appreciate or need the things it does better, that I listed above, and for my use it's quite a mediocre and very expensive device.

 

[bruinsrme]

Just like any Nexus phone before. We'll see how they'll manage customer service as they did really bad in the past and this is crucial to have a chance (beyond geeks and nerds). Amazon and Apple shine at this, Google seems to start from scratch and has a bias towards automation, FAQ lists, forums but no face to face or structured support.

If their phone support is anything like gmail customer service this phone will be a paper weight in 4 months